DURBAN: Snake expert Nick Evans says this summer has been his busiest snake season to date after catching three black mambas yesterday.
This comes after Evans rescued five black mambas on Thursday.
“It was just too hot for most snakes for most of the day yesterday. Well, apart from bush snakes, they were having a summer party of note. But as the temps lowered, not that it made much difference comfort-wise to us, the black mambas started moving,” he said.
For his last call out of the day, Evans went to Mt Moreland on the North Coast about 30km outside Durban.
He said he had caught a mamba in the same pigeon loft last year.
“That one didn’t get a meal, this one did. Three chicks gone,” he said
Describing the events, Evans said the owner had gone in to feed the birds, when the mamba came slithering between his legs.
“Because it struggled to move on the smooth surface, he said its tail kept slapping his legs as it moved through, moving side to side. Madness!” he said.
Evans said this was a good example that the instinct of mambas is not to bite unless they are given no choice.
“In fact, all three calls were quite good examples of how mambas really behave. Situations where they could have attacked people, but they didn’t,” he said.
In his first call of the day, Evans was asked to rescue a mamba which went into a small, cluttered room, to take shelter from the heat during the day in Reservoir Hills.
“What I gathered was that there were two people in the room when the mamba entered. It took cover in a small cupboard by the door and the people exited, at speed!” he said.
Evans opened the cupboard and found the mamba curled up.
“It was huge! [2.5m] Another well-fed Durban mamba! A real rat exterminator. Fortunately, it was quite an easy catch,” he said.
Evans then went to Westville, where he said a friend had seen a mamba on his property.
“Luckily, the Westville mamba took cover behind some paving stones, stacked against a wall by the garage, so it didn’t go anywhere,” he said.
He uncovered it, and pinned it down in another easy catch.
“This is my busiest mamba summer to date!” he noted.
THE MERCURY